The Hamburg Start Up Scene According To Mattermark Data

What can Mattermark teach us about the Hamburg Start Up Scene?

To find out I used Mattermark, an awesome big data tool for private companies. I started using Mattermark a few weeks ago, when looking at my home town of Cologne. Then, I used it again a few weeks after with Berlin because it got so interesting. And now, it’s gotten to be a hobby. One that I would like to share with you.

Mattermark is a big data tool that puts all kinds of indicators (web traffic, social media presence, mobile downloads, etc) together into their so called 'Mindshare Score' (MS) which helps to quickly identify companies whose online footprint is growing the fastest. It is measured on a weekly basis and averaged over time to provide a trending metric. Mattermark is used by lots of (U.S.) VCs, so it's definitely worth looking at.

Every article I'll pick a city I want to explore through Mattermark. Mattermark provides a list of the top 50 companies and I'll pick a few interesting companies that stand out because of their performance, product or simply because I have some personal experience with them and I feel that they shouldn't be left out. The overall theme is simple: how does a city score when looking at their start ups, what is the climate and which are the really cool, innovative companies?

For today, I've found some interesting companies at the top of the list. Up in the top 5, we'll have a look at the #1 Kreditech, the #3 Innogames (or should I say #2?) and #4 SpeedupEurope. Almost closing the top 10 is Facelift at #9. Definitely worth the read.

But I also wanted to pick out some interesting stuff a bit further down. They might not make the top 10, but you'll want to know about them anyways. The lucky numbers are: #13 Sonormed, #15 Secucloud and #16 Minubo.Have a look and tell me what you think afterwards. I always want to hear your opinion!

So here's what Mattermark has to say about the top 50 list of Hamburg's companies:

> The stats below show the first 50 results upon searching for the top Hamburg companies (except for acquired or IPO's):

Is. Awesome. It surprises me that their Mindshare score (316) is comparatively low, compared to the momentum they have. Kreditech (MS: 316) was founded in 2012 as they put it themselves by two guys with one idea and zero credit. Kreditech uses big data algorithms and automated processes to score everyone worldwide and they mean everyone (also the 4 billion unbanked inhabitants of this earth that do not have a credit score).

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Kreditech:

"Kreditech started as an idea for an alternate credit bureau in 2012 with the purpose to sell better scoring data to banks. It has evolved to a lending business where the subsidiaries issue small loans for short durations. Based on 20,000 dynamic data points – including social networks, mobile usage, location, e-commerce data etc. – the technology today allows us to serve these customers within seconds, 24/7 through automated processes."

They've received $263 Million in 8 Rounds from 16 Investors (click on the links for more specifics). Kreditech has had an almost lineair growth in LinkedIn followers and Twitter followers since 2013 as well as an expanding demand for new employees but have somehow been experiencing a drop in monthly unique visitors on their website since September 2014.

> These 3 graphs show a closer insight into Kreditech's stats:

You know how start ups have the name of wanting to be rebellious and change the world, even if that might sound a bit cheeky or disrupt the status quo? Well, Kreditech has really nailed that in their communications. It's the perfect combination of bold while sounding (reasonably) professional. Here's some examples I got from the website to show you what I mean:

> When you want to find out what it is they really do you get hit with this one:

"Banking as we know it today is dead. Your banking branch won’t exist 10 years from now, and neither will cost intensive, manual banking processes."

> First question of the questionnaire of what they call ' finding your true calling at Kreditech':

Lets head down the list a little more and talk about the innovative companies that follow Kreditech in it's trail.

But first, what is Nordex doing in this list?? It was founded in 1985, has been listed on the Frankfurter Stock Exchange since 2001, builds a number of products and has over 73,5 million in capital. As much of a great company it might be, it really isn't a start up. At all.

Innogames (MS: 171) comes third (or actually second if you exclude Nordex) on the list for a reason. InnoGames is one of the worldwide leading developers and publishers of online games.

Over 150 million registered players are enjoying popular online games such as Tribal Wars, Forge of Empires, Grepolis, The West and Elvenar. Although its roots go back to 2003 with the development of Tribal Wars, Innogames' conception was in 2007. Which kind of qualifies it as a start up. It has received an unknown amount of funding by Fidelity Growth Partners Europe. So taken all of this into calculation, why then is its Mindshare score (171) so low?

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Innogames:

> These 2 graphs show a closer insight into Innogames' stats:

If you'll look at the monthly unique visitors, you'll notice that it has been declining since around December 2014. Which is actually not a bad time compared to the historical growth score, as you can see in the chart beneath it. Innogames has become a big company with many games to play. They've got nearly 300 employees. It was obvious that at some point they were going to slow down in growth. Which, as you can see, started around October/November 2013. A quick conclusion is that they've battled the declining growth rate enormously well really, judging by the fact that they've slowed down growing around the end of 2013 but haven't experienced a real decline in monthly visitors until a year after.

Going back to their Mindshare score. You can see a turning point around the same time by the end of 2013. But it didn't drop at all. It just slowly started going down at a slightly slower rate each time. Nicely done Innogames.

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for SpeedUpEurope:

So it's really the third on this list and definitely on my list of companies I want to briefly talk about: SpeedupEurope (MS: 476). The above quote is from their website and it almost covers the whole thing: they make entrepreneurs.

What is it all about? This is how they explain it: "We will help you to get your project started. Use our knowledge as an experienced accelerator. Deploy the open source FIWARE as an efficient tool for daily business, use a mentor’s expertise and benefit from financial support the EU grants you for a safe start.

100 projects will be granted €50,000 each for software and equipment, travel expenses, rent of facilities and accommodation costs. An additional €20,000 can be requested during project implementation to bring in another project member at a later stage. This is a grant with no repayment, nor do you need to give away shares."

SpeedupEurope has good marketing and they know that it's really all in a name. With a Mindshare Score (476) that exceeds even the Mindshare Score of the number one, Kreditech (316), I wanted to take them as a example of the fact that Hamburg has indeed created a fertile ground for initiating start ups and growing companies. Sure, they've gone down in Mindshare Score since December 2014, but they've been founded in June 2014 only. They're probably just balancing out by now. Also, they haven't got any (known) funding yet. Anybody interested?

So far I'm impressed with the results on the Hamburg list by Mattermark.

I said this before, but Mattermark isn't always as correct in their results. This was the case with the inclusion of Nordex in the list on a grand scale, but also with Facelift on a slightly smaller scale.

Facelift (MS: 291), which is a leading provider for Social Marketing technologies in Europe, claims to have a team of 150 while Mattermark says 72. Not a big issue, but it just goes to say that you cannot trust everything at first glance.

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Facelift:

Facelift was founded in 2011 and has done really well for itself thus far. With clients such as Air Berlin, Bayer AG and Deutsche Bahn, they seem to have perfected their product to a degree where they only attract the really big players and deliver in such a fashion that they keep coming back.

Facelift offers what they call 'Facelift Cloud' which is a software solution with all components for professional social-marketing on an enterprise level. It consists of four modules: Communications, Engagement, Advertising and Statistics. It's SaaS (Software as a Service) and basically, what you should imagine is a service that combines all your social media options into one insightful service that helps you create opportunities for spreading the good word out on the internet. Instantly develop micro-websites on different platforms without any technical skills, create an advertisement, communicatie through different media with the same template and review your succes with the provided statistics. Facelift covers whatever social-marketing desires you may have. And I really, really like it.

Next up is a company that's solely focused on the treatment of tinnitus. Tinnitus is an affliction where there is constantly sound in your ears, ringing being one of them and often the most predominant. We've probably all experienced it. Most often after a night out in a club that played the music a bit too loud or with a speaker system that should probably be updated. Imagine having that day in, day out.

They people at Sonormed (MS: 231) did imagine it and their response must have been to immediately find a solution to this affliction. But help comes from unexpected directions. Go over to the Sonormed and you quickly realize the ingenious solution they've found for curing tinnitus by its name. www.tinnitracks.com

That's right: "with just one tap you can set up your own music for therapeutic use. During this process your tinnitus frequency is filtered out of your music files. The first step in setting up Tinnitracks is to enter your tinnitus frequency. The next step is to select the music files on your computer you would like to use for the treatment. Now you just need to put on your headphones and start the treatment.'' - Tinnitracks website.

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Sonormed:

Sonormed is doing alright in the charts. They are are very young company with overwhelming potential but it's really too early to say anything based on statistics. I have two graphs I want to show you. The first is the unique monthly visitors, which is good. The second is the graph that shows how Facebook has reacted over time. That one is just funny and impressive. You'll see why (let's just say I've never seen such a straight line before).

Secucloud (MS: 134) "Secucloud is a service provider of readily-available cloud-based IT security operating worldwide. The state-of-the-art products and services offer an integrated, none-compromise high security and performance approach. Only the latest security technologies from the industry sector are used for the implementation thereof so that even the most complex of threats can be averted in a lasting and effective manner.ECS², the Elastic Cloud Security System, processes the internet traffic of an almost infinite number of transactions and protects the user’s stationary, as well as mobile user devices, equally effectively on a worldwide scale." - From the about us page.

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Secucloud:

Secucloud was founded in 2013 and built by a team of experienced business executives and entrepreneurs, according to their website. The graph above shows us a pretty steady development. Steady, but nothing too shocking. They started out with a Mindshare score of 200, which of course is a great place to start. And then, as expected, faltered to eventually find its balance around September/October 2014. By now, they're on a steady track.

More statistics show is a deeper insight in how the company is really doing:

I suppose they were shuttled into existence with a bang. As you can see they generated some traffic on their website and people started talking on Facebook. Nothing too special, it wouldn't beat a new fancy restaurant in downtown Hamburg. But remember we're talking about a company that deals in IT security. Exciting and important stuff for those like us who are involved with the internet, but not exactly material that makes your regional celebrity run wild on Twitter and Instagram.

And soon after, due to the lack of celebreties tweeting and taking selfies with the Secucloud logo, the traffic started to go down. Sounds too bad right?

Well not really apparently. The last graph shows that it really doesn't suck to be a shareholder in Secucloud. Not if you keep hiring staff at a steady rate and grow to 30 employees in 2 years. That must mean you're doing something right. Lets emphasize that statement by adding that they've actually won an interesting prize last March: the Innovations Award, Best of IT 2015. Secucloud is on the rise!

Minubo (MS: 184) is an eCommerce Intelligence “as a Service” solution that makes online retailers drive their growth by converting data into action. I could go further into detail (and I will) but I'd like to shoot off with the following video. I always like videos.

Minubo was founded in 2013 and they're doing well. They have been doing so since the start, but they kicked it up a notch just recently. With $2.9 Million in 2 Rounds from 7 Investors, they acquired their latest funding with a $1.6 Million Seed on December 11, 2014.

I would have liked to say that they're Mindshare score shot up immediately after the last financial injection but unfortunately it almost never works like that. Mattermark says that they show a strong resemblance with Wunderdata, a Berliner company also founded in 2013 that that claims to deliver the easiest online business intelligence tools for online shops. Their Mindshare score (MS: 148) however doesn't currently stack up to that of Minubo. The Hamburger company leads still with a MS of 184.

> This chart shows the current Growth Score and Mind Share Score for Minubo:

Concluding our little exploration down the list on the top 50 companies in Hamburg, according to the Mattermark data, we find a fertile ground for entrepreneurship together with interesting companies that match up to any international competitor and with the intention to do so. I'm very impressed with Kreditech. I like their boldness and the creativity of their approach.

When it comes to creativity, I'm absolutely blown away by Sonormed's Tinnitracks. Imagine curing yourself while listening to your favorite music. That's quite something else than the traditional way of medicine of popping pills and sticking needles up your arm.

And coming back to ambition, I believe that the success of Facelift with clients such as Bayer AG and Deutsche Bahn will be surpassed in the future only by themselves.

Comparing that to Berlin, I would say that the theme of the companies in Hamburg is slightly less 'artistic' and perhaps a little more devoted to the technical side of business and products itself. Whereas Berlin is occupied by creating products in the realm of music, art and marketplaces, Hamburg focusses perhaps a little more on supporting the mechanisms that make those companies possible. Whether that be IT security, social marketing or eCommerce.

Next up Munich. Might Mattermark show us a different take on the Bavarian capital?